Chapter 22
The following week, I’m on my hands and knees on the floor of the storage room, and Ben is fucking me hard from behind.
The camp has been tense all day, which is natural since we’re only two days from our attack on the Arsenal.
But the heightened nerves have gotten to me as much as everyone else, and I was snippy with Ben after dinner, telling him he could stop hovering when he was lurking behind me as I was reviewing procedures with Vella and Roderick.
He never talks back around other people. He never conveys annoyance or impatience with even the smallest flicker of his expression. He murmured “Yes, ma’am” and took several steps back to increase the distance between us.
But I knew he would address my tone when we were alone.
I did not expect his method of addressing it.
Without a word, he turned me around to face the wall and teased me until I was so hot I was gasping and biting back whimpers.
All the while, he was muttering out the hottest remonstrances—about how I should know better than to get this tense without letting him take care of me, without letting him work me up to the release I need, without allowing him to help me let go.
Never in my life would I have believed that kind of talk could do it for me, but it’s worked like magic this evening. Ben took his time, but we’ve eventually ended up here on the floor, me barely holding my position while he pounds into me from behind.
I’ve already come twice, and he’s still talking.
“You gotta tell me if you need it like this.” His cock is thick and tight in my still spasming pussy, and he keeps pushing it fast and hard. “You’re so used to bein’ in charge you forget sometimes you like me to put you on your hands and knees and give it to you like this.”
Fuck. I’m about to come again. It’s rising, throbbing, aching as it grows. I twist my head so I can smother a helpless whine into my shoulder so I’m not too loud.
“You gonna come again?”
“Yeah,” I manage to get out. The word is shaking like my body. “I’m so close.”
“Stop tryin’ to fight it. This is the one thing you don’t gotta fight.” He slows his thrusts so he can move my body, raising my upper half to change the angle of penetration, tightening his thrusts.
A loud sound of pleasure escapes me. An orgasm starts spasming while still mounting higher. I cling to one of the built-in shelves to hold myself up.
“There you go. Now you got it. I love to see you lettin’ go like this.” He’s shifted back into the pistoning motion, intensifying the sound of wet suction from my pussy. “Try to slow your breathin’ so you’re not forcin’ it so much.”
I gasp harshly and then gasp again. “I can’t.” I’m holding on to the shelf so tightly I almost pull it loose, but Ben reaches up to push it back before any of the stored items do more than wobble.
“Yeah, you can. Breathe slow and long for me. It’ll be so good that way. You just got to stop fightin’ and accept it.”
Nothing inside me feels like slowing down, unclenching, but his voice is a lifeline as I’m drowning in intense pleasure, so I do what he says because he says it. I manage to stop panting and suck in a long inhale, blowing it out intentionally.
On the exhale, all the building tension inside me erupts with a tidal wave of release. I sob loudly as the pleasure slams into me and continues longer than I could have imagined as Ben keeps pushing against my clenching muscles.
“There you go,” he rasps, clearly on the last thread of his control. “That’s what you needed, baby. I got you. Just let yourself feel it. I got you. I always got you.”
I might be crying for real when the climax finally subsides to jerky afterquakes. I sniff and whimper and blink away a few tears as Ben falls out of rhythm with an extended groan.
For a moment, I wonder if he’s going to come before he pulls out as he jerks and shakes, but he yanks his cock out of my pussy at the last moment and comes all over my ass.
“Fuck,” he’s gasping as he works through the last of his own climax. “Oh fuck, baby. Fuck.”
A silly giggle escapes as I turn to look at him over my shoulder. My back and pussy and throat are sore, but my mind and body and heart feel so good. “That’s three fucks in one mumble.”
He huffs with amusement, pulling me up and turning me around so he can hug me. We’re both still panting and half naked, but it doesn’t matter.
After a minute, we’re mostly dressed again and cuddled together, leaning against the door.
I’m playing with the ring on his hand, twirling it the way he so often does himself. Without thinking it through, I ask, “Who gave this to you?”
“What?” He sounds sated and slightly groggy.
“The ring. You said it was a gift.”
“Oh. Yeah. My mom gave it to me.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She found it while she and my dad were scavenging an old shopping center about fifteen years ago, and she gave it to me. I don’t know why exactly. She said it made her think of me. Something about the roots and the branches.”
“I can see it.”
“Can you?”
“Yeah. You have deep roots from your family and community, and maybe that’s where the strength of your branches comes from.”
He chuckles at this, squeezing me tighter. “My branches?”
“You know what I mean. You’re strong. Protective. Sheltering. And deeply rooted. I can see exactly why the ring made your mother think of you.”
I suspect Ben appreciates that I’ve said this about him, but it must make him self-conscious because he mumbles something incoherent.
Smiling, I lift his hand so I can kiss the ring. Then we settle into a few more minutes of silence.
“Thank you,” I say at last.
“For what? Not fuckin’ you, I hope. ’Cause I get as good as I give in that.”
“Yes. I know. But you always go out of your way to make sure I… I get what I need—in sex and in everything else. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He kisses the top of my head in the sweetest small gesture. “But like I said, I’m gettin’ as good as I’m givin’. Nothin’ in the world makes me happier than bein’ with you like this. I’m hopin’ you’ll always let me fuck you that good.”
I swallow hard. He means it. For such a stoic, silent man, he’s been completely vulnerable with his feelings lately. There’s no way in the world for me to doubt them.
“Too much?” Ben asks softly after a minute.
“No. It’s not too much. I… I want it too. But sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it.”
With a guttural sound, he lifts me up and settles me on his lap, cupping my face so I hold his gaze. “Listen to me, baby. I know you lost your dad too early and your mom and stepmom both sucked. But you gotta know this already. Love has never been about deservin’.”
My throat tightens with emotion. My eyes burn. I try to respond but can’t get a word out.
“None of us deserve it, but sometimes we get it anyway.”
“You deserve it.”
He blinks, clearly taken by surprise.
So I say it again. “You deserve it, Ben. You deserve everything. You’ve always been the strong tree with deep roots, and you deserve it.”
He smiles, his face and body both softening palpably. “I think you might have a kinda biased view of me, but let’s pretend that’s true. If I deserve everythin’, then that means I get to have you.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him tight, overwhelmed by what he’s saying, what he’s offering, what he’s giving me.
What he’s been giving me from the moment we met.
I want to give him everything too. He needs to hear the words out loud, so I say them. “You have me, Ben. You have me.”
Midmorning the following day, we get word from our lookouts close to the Capitol that three transport trucks left the city and are driving in our direction.
Transport trucks carry food and supplies. Not troops. But three leaving together and not diverting in different directions is strange.
Maybe there’s an emergency somewhere and the president is sending extra food and supplies. It happens occasionally. Or maybe they’re heading to different villages but using the same road for a while to get there.
There’s nothing particularly threatening about transport trucks. Normally we wouldn’t give them a second thought. But we’ve been waiting for the Capitol’s next move against us, and three trucks traveling together is strange.
It sets off alarm bells in my head, and I’m not the only one.
Me, Ben, Vella, and Roderick are conferring in the command station when Ryan gets off the radio and tells us the news. We sit for a few minutes, mulling over the possibilities, but we all end up at the same conclusion.
“Sounds fishy,” Vella says, summing up what we’re all feeling.
“A lot of troops can be hiding out in the back of those trucks,” Roderick adds. “Perfect way to get close to us without alerting everyone in the city that there’s been an uprising. I’m surprised they haven’t tried something like that before.”
“Of course they get the idea right before we’re about to make our move.” Vella shakes her head. “Should we head out and set explosives?”
I make a face. “I don’t want to attack innocent transports. There’s always a chance the drivers could get hurt.”
“We need to know what we’re dealing with early,” Ben says.
With a nod, I say, “Yes. Let’s brainstorm. We need to figure out a way to know what those trucks are carrying before we lay the ambush.”
In the end, it’s simpler than we feared.
Vella gets on an ATV to drive out toward where the trucks are approaching. Then she drives wildly toward them, shooting her pistol a few times at the trucks until the back one of them opens and two guards begin to shoot back.
She ducks to avoid the bullets and drives into some nearby trees where the trucks can’t follow. From there, she radios the news.
The transport trucks are full of troops, and they’re coming our way.